


The White Wolf

by norgbelulah



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Animal Transformation, Fix-It of Sorts, Grief/Mourning, Multi, OT3, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21888505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: Trevor and Sypha travel back to the Belmont Estate and Castle Dracula, unsure of what they will find there.
Relationships: Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya & Trevor Belmont & Sypha Belnades, Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/Trevor Belmont/Sypha Belnades
Comments: 9
Kudos: 203
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The White Wolf

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dsudis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/gifts).



They hadn't exactly told him they would come back, but Trevor had sort of assumed they just would at some point. Not so much because Trevor or Sypha were particularly attached to the estate or the castle, but because it made sense as some kind of base of operations. 

Also, he found he missed Alucard. An idea that had not occurred to him at all before they left.

“You didn't think you would miss him?” Sypha asked as though he were an idiot. “We only spent every waking hour with him for several extremely traumatic weeks.”

“No, I didn't. I'm not in the habit of wondering whether I'll be sad someone's not around anymore. I'm sad all the time. Remember?” He crossed his arms in her direction as the wagon swayed over the bumpy country road. “Remember that's what you said about me?”

She rolled her eyes but gave him a soft smile to follow. “Not all the time anymore,” she answered and tucked her hand into his arm, snuggling close. 

The sun was about to go down and they’d left her camp of Speakers only a few miles behind them. The Belmont Estate and Dracula’s Castle lay about ten miles ahead. 

Trevor and Sypha had traveled with the Speakers, telling their story and reveling in the people’s joy in their victory. The Elder Speaker, Sypha’s grandfather, had asserted the Speakers’ interest in Alucard’s history and his perspective on the death of his father. Trevor had been drunk that night--not fall down, thank you very much, Sypha--but pleasantly enough to unthinkingly ask, “Why would you need that? He was glad as the rest of us.”

Sypha had turned to him, firelight dazzingly bright in her hair, and said, “You never pay attention. He was gutted. He loved his father. He told us that.”

“I rather think Dracula was the one who was gutted, but--ow!” She’d stormed off then, leaving him rubbing at his arm and remembering that Alucard, always stoic, always calm, unless Trevor successfully got under his skin, had barely spoken through the short days that passed until Trevor and Sypha took their leave of him.

Now, on the road back to the Castle, Sypha was silent for a while before she admitted, “I knew we would miss him. You too, you idiot. But I thought we should give him some time. To be alone with it, I mean. But now I wonder--”

Trevor sat up straighter. “Wonder what?”

Her voice was hushed and wavered a little. She kept her eyes on the road and her hand in the crook of his arm. She took her time to say, “If perhaps...I was wrong. I don’t know. He’s all alone. Living inside two tombs piled on top of each other.”

“Well, when you put it that way it sounds grotesque.” 

Guilt was sinking slowly in Trevor’s stomach. He thought of the days after his own family had perished. He'd seen his father strung up in the forest on their own land, hunted like the monsters he’d spent his life killing. Never loved and never thanked until the Church finally excommunicated and killed him. Trevor refused, as he had for most of his adult life, to think of what they’d done to his mother and sisters that night. 

To have to stay in this place, this ruin, immediately after everything that had happened here, Trevor knew he would have gone mad. He’d run as far and as fast as he could away from it and it had only been a threat to the entire fucking kingdom that had got him to return.

“It seemed like,” he said slowly, “that Alucard wanted it. He knew everything about the Castle, you could tell by the way he walked through the halls. It must have been his home once. If we couldn’t move it, he might as well have what was underneath too. But…”

“But?” Sypha was very good at pulling more words out of him than he’d intended to speak.

“Well, I know I told him that he could make something better out of it.” Trevor frowned. “I really was trying to help, but wouldn’t it feel like being trapped in a memory? Having to stay there. Having the responsibility to keep all of it safe? I should have thought of that.” 

She pressed her forehead to his shoulder and sighed. Trevor said, almost to himself, “Well, if he hated it enough, I hope he just fucking left. Let it all rot. We can track him down and he can come with us. If he wants to.” When he looked down at her she was smiling up at him. “What?”

“You’re a work in progress, Trevor Belmont,” she said with half a laugh in her voice. He liked it, so he tried not to look too hurt. “Hard work. But worth it, I think.”

The castle didn't look any different when they returned to it than it had the day they left. Trevor wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, so he didn’t say anything to Sypha about it. They tied up the horses in the ruin of the Belmont stables and knocked on the great doors of Castle Dracula. 

There was no answer.

“Hmm,” Trevor said eloquently. Sypha just pushed it open with a gust of wind. Trevor’s eyes swept up the ranging stairs to the landing for the second floor. He thought for sure Alucard would be there. He’d just been in some far away room, straightening some rubbish or lost in a book. But he didn’t come. Sypha called his name. 

There was a flash of white in the corner of Trevor’s eyeline, there and gone. In the next second, he was after it. Sypha called a warning after him, but of course he didn’t heed her. He pelted up the stairs, drawing his sword, pivoting blind around the corner, where he came face to face with an enormous, charging, white wolf.

“Holy fuck,” Trevor cried, dodging the animal badly and stumbling to the floor. The wolf whirled towards him, but turned again as Sypha reached the top of the stairs and cried, “Alucard! Stop!”

Oh God, Trevor really was an idiot. Alucard had only transformed into this form for a few moments during the final battle. Trevor hadn’t known he could do such a thing and he hadn’t thought Sypha knew either, but they’d never talked about it. There had been no battle debrief, no licking of wounds, no, “Hey that fucking whip work you did was immensely impressive, Trevor.” He’d just given Alucard this goddamned graveyard and wandered off into the sunset with the only other person who gave at least a little bit of a damn about either of them.

“Fuck. Alucard,” Trevor breathed. He held his hands up, dropping his sword in the process, and resisted the urge to scramble away from the growling beast before him. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said, but Alucard didn’t let up. His eyes were a fierce yellow and his teeth were barred. The rumble of his growl was low, but loud and frankly menacing. He was poised to strike and Trevor didn’t understand. “What the hell, you bastard?”

“Trevor, that’s not helping,” Sypha said, her tone wary. She had her hands before her, as though she were about to cast a spell. “Alucard,” she said again, but the wolf didn’t turn towards her this time. “Something is wrong.”

“You _think_?” God, Trevor wished he hadn’t dropped his fucking sword. “So, what? Is this Alucard or not?”

Her brows were drawn down and her lips pressed together into a tight frown. Her hands were steady and there was the distinct smell of gathering brimstone that clung in the air when she was building up a spell, or holding one back. “I think it is,” she said finally. “It must be.”

“Well, he looks just the fucking same, but this is a little much even for him.” Trevor’s legs were cramping he was so tense. His fingers itched for his weapons, but no, if this was Alucard, he couldn’t go after him with Morningstar. “Jesus, Alucard. Come on,” he whispered and took a chance.

In one fluid motion, Trevor brought his feet underneath his body and lunged at the hulking beast, growling himself and butting heads with him. For a moment, there was soft fur under his palms and between his fingers and he almost had purchase. But the wolf feinted back, escaping Trevor’s grasp. Trevor heard him let out a strange, high pitched whine and in the next moment, Alucard spun on his back legs and tore down the corridor as though hellhounds were nipping at his heels.

Trevor watched the wolf's escape with his jaw hanging open like an asshole, then turned back to Sypha. Her hands were limp at her side and there were tears gathering in her eyes. Trevor was about to reassure her that he was fine until he realized she also looked absolutely pissed.

“What is wrong with you?” she cried hoarsely. “Seriously, what?”

“You what?” He shouted and threw his hands in the air. “I'm fucking fine!”

“He was going to strike! You think I wanted to watch him kill you, Trevor? The two goddamn people who--” she broke off there and Trevor really didn't feel like pushing her to continue. 

He got to his feet wearily, his bones aching, his muscles sore. He rubbed a hand across his forehead where he'd struck Alucard, the white wolf. “I actually don't think he was going to. He had ages. But he didn't.”

Sypha crossed her arms like she couldn't believe him.

“I'm serious,” he said, stepping cautiously closer to her. 

He held out his arms and she stepped into them. She pressed her forehead to his breastplate and he lifted his fingers to her hair. She raised her face to him even as he dipped his head to press his lips against hers. They'd fallen into bed together at the Speakers’ camp as both of them had known they eventually would. Trevor counted himself lucky every day that she would even look at him and he really was trying to do and be better for her.

When they parted, he whispered to her hair, “I'm fine.”

“But he's not,” she answered softly.

“No,” Trevor said. “I don't think so. He was frightened. Of us.”

“But why?”

“I don't know, Sypha. But I'm going to find out.”

They decided Trevor would follow the wolf and Sypha would go down to the great laboratories Alucard had shown them in the days before they departed. She thought perhaps there might be some clue as to what had happened to him. Trevor just wanted to get another look at Alucard, preferably when the wolf wasn't about to tear his face off.

Trevor walked slowly down the corridor, treading softly, but not really stopping himself from making some noise. He truly thought Alucard was frightened of something and he felt a little bad he'd run after him half-cocked, probably freaking him out even further. 

His walk took him straight into the fiery tunnel that their battle had carved into the base of the castle itself. Trevor picked his way carefully down the melted stone and steel, kicking a few rocks as he went, before emerging in the same room Dracula had died in.

“Well, this can't be good,” Trevor muttered. He kept himself by the door. Except, it wasn’t so much a door as it was a giant hole in the wall. He looked about the room carefully and noted, as he slowly realized something the buzz of fear and elation of the battle hadn’t allowed him to before: that it was a _child’s bedroom_. 

“Oh, fuck me.”

A pile of blankets that had clearly been dragged from the bed stirred slightly and emitted a small, perfunctory growl. Trevor felt faint, overcome for a moment by the immense sadness of the scene before him. He pulled himself together then, looking down at where Alucard, the massive fucking shapeshifting wolf, was hiding from him. 

“So this is your room, huh?” Trevor looked up at the ceiling. “I like the stars,” he said casually as he stepped slowly further into the space. He kept his back to the wall and his eyes up, even as Alucard’s very intimidating growling became louder. “Bet your dad painted that for you. Yeah, of course he did, the bastard.” 

Trevor kept his tone light, but his stomach was in knots of worry and anger. How had he not noticed? How had he thought Alucard would just be all right after everything, when Trevor himself had been anything but for fucking years?

Alucard let out a faint wuff, then a whine, and was silent. Trevor slowly slid down the wall and to the floor. He propped his elbows on his knees and glanced over at the blanket pile. A black nose poked out from between the folds. Trevor smirked, then he started talking. 

He gave grudging compliments to most of the stuff in the room and called Alucard a nerd for having so many books. He talked about Sypha and her family, how welcoming they’d been. “We should have asked you to come,” he said after a while. “I know it would have been hard for you to hear all the cheering about your father being dead. But maybe whatever’s happening right now wouldn’t have happened if you were with us. You were welcome. I think maybe we both thought you knew and just didn’t want to come.” He sighed and looked over to find the wolf’s head emerging from his little nest, resting on his front paws and looking rather pathetic.

Trevor noticed Alucard’s eyes were no longer the almost glowing yellow he’d seen in the corridor. They were now the same burnished gold as when he held the shape of a man. “There you are,” Trevor said softly and smiled at him. “Welcome back?”

Alucard whined again, but he was looking right at Trevor and he didn’t seem frightened now in the least.

“How long have you been wearing that skin?” Trevor asked him. The wolf tilted his head like he didn’t understand. Trevor thinned his lips, thinking and worrying. “Alucard,” he said calmly and the wolf blinked. “Are you just listening to my voice or do you really understand?” Alucard’s eyes were steady on him. They looked much like they always had, but Trevor couldn’t tell if he was imagining a certain dullness buried in them or not. “Once for yes, two for no, okay?”

The wolf didn’t react.

“Fuck,” Trevor said. Then he kept talking.

Trevor talked until his voice was hoarse. The whole time he was talking, he was inching along the wall behind him, closer to the hole in the wall, and closer by distance to Alucard. He was relaxing his posture and reaching out his hands. He wished he had some food on him, but they’d left all their supplies in the wagon, too eager to make sure Alucard was all right to think of bringing anything inside.

Eventually, Trevor ended up telling the story of the bar fight he’d had--the one just before this whole killing Dracula thing began--with two cousins, one being the goat fucker. He happened to be describing the excruciating pain of having one’s balls kicked three times in the space of two minutes, when suddenly Alucard slipped from his blanket cocoon and stood. 

Trevor fell silent and just looked at him. He was tall, nearly as tall as a man. His legs were long and muscled like a horse. His fur shining white in the scant light that shone down through the window in the ceiling of the bedroom. His eyes, still gold, looked slightly more alert, or maybe that was just Trevor’s wishful thinking. “Christ, you really are a magnificent beast,” he said softly. The wolf woofed as though Trevor had said something funny and tentatively walked forward.

Trevor, very slowly, held out his right hand. Alucard, equally slowly, put his chin in Trevor’s open palm. Trevor smiled. Alucard’s fur was soft there, short, but not bristly. He carefully rubbed him, once, then twice, then pressed his splayed fingers forward and into the thick fur at his jowl. Alucard closed his eyes, Trevor hoped in pleasure, and leaned into the comforting touch. 

Trevor kept telling his story, all the while running his fingers through Alucard’s soft coat, and keeping a sharp eye out for any signs of a sardonic expression in his eyes. He'd purposely chosen the most humiliating story he could think of, mostly to see if he could get any kind of rise out of the beast. Alucard seemed to just be enjoying the ministrations of his hands. Perhaps he wasn't even paying attention anymore. Perhaps he couldn't pay attention at all.

Trevor heard the echo of footsteps in the tunnel just after he saw Alucard’s ears swivel towards the sound. “It's only Sypha,” he said. “I think.”

Alucard stiffened when she stepped into the room, but he didn't growl and he didn't dive back under the blankets. He only looked up at her from where he was sitting on his hind legs in front of Trevor. Trevor wondered how someone might tell if a wolf recognized a person?

Sypha's expression was grave, her brow furrowed, but she held the bleeding haunch of some animal in her hands. Alucard’s nostrils flared and his lips parted, tongue lolling out into a panting, wolfish grin. 

“Oh, now you like me,” she said without a trace of her normal humor.

Trevor smirked for her. “Where the fuck did you get that?”

“There was nothing in the laboratories.” Sypha said, looking at Alucard. “You didn’t touch any of it, did you?”

Alucard only panted at her.

“I thought, if he would be difficult, we might have to coax him out of someplace.” She didn’t hold out the meat. There was blood underneath her fingernails. “I wasn’t sure about hunting. Especially if he’s been roaming outside of the castle. So I butchered one of the horses.”

Trevor made a face. Horse meat was not his favorite. “Which one?”

“The bay,” she said and gave him a sly look. “I knew you would cry if I chose Little Blackie.”

“That’s not her name,” Trevor protested, then shook his head, unwilling to be distracted. “And anyway, won’t we need two horses to pull the damn wagon?”

Sypha set the haunch down on the ground at Alucard’s feet. “We’re not going anywhere for a while,” she said.

They watched Alucard devour the bloody meat.

Sypha sat herself down next to Trevor, leaning against the wall as well. Alucard eyed her as he ate, but he didn’t shy away and he didn’t drag his gnarled bone into his nest of blankets as Trevor had been thinking he might. When he was finished, he licked his chops, let out a satisfied whuff of a sigh, and laid himself down in Trevor’s lap.

“You should see your face,” Sypha said quietly, smiling softly at them. She was quite close to Alucard now, her knees tucked next to Trevor’s, their shoulders brushing, pressing. They sat like that a lot now. It had somehow become comfortable. Alucard didn’t seem to mind their closeness either, having barely glanced at Sypha before he planted his head on Trevor’s thigh.

Trevor didn’t know what to do with his hands right away, but he eventually settled on running the same long, slow strokes against Alucard’s fur that he’d seemed to like so much before. The wolf’s breathing steadied and his eyes were closed. But for some reason, Trevor wasn’t quite sure he was asleep, so he started talking again.

“There’s a town not far from here,” he said in a low tone.

Sypha opened her mouth to speak. He knew she’d have questions, but he shook his head and she closed it, eyeing him thoughtfully. “I didn’t mention it before. And you might remember, if you can, that I steered us away from any and all civilization on the road to the estate, the first time and again today when it was just me and Sypha. You see, I used to spend a lot of time in that town.”

Alucard tilted his head, rolling his massive skull across Trevor’s thigh and squinting his eyes just a little open, as if to say, “Is this going somewhere?” 

Trevor forged ahead. “There was a market my mother would send the servants to. Sometimes they would take me and let me barter for fish or grains or whatever. It was a grand adventure to a small boy. I went back often as a youth as well. There was a smith in town my father would go see. He forged me a practice blade when I was only eight years old and my first real blade when I was twelve. I had a lot of very lovely memories of that place, but I never, ever, want to go back. I won’t tell you what was done to my mother and my two sisters in that town’s square at the order, then under the blind eye of the Church. I won’t say because I can’t bear to think of it. Ever.”

Alucard looked at him very intently.

“I will tell you that I spent years fighting and drinking and attempting to fuck myself as far away as I could from that town and what I saw happen there. So, I’ll say again, Alucard--Adrian,” Trevor couldn’t remember if he’d ever spoken Alucard’s given name aloud before. The wolf looked up at him and Trevor really, really thought something was getting through as he said, “I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t give you the same consideration. I’m sorry we left you here. I’m sorry we didn’t drag you out of this fucking tomb by your golden curls kicking and screaming if we had to, you idiot bastard. Okay?”

Alucard whined. It was a short, pathetic noise and it moved Sypha to finally reach out and stroke his ruff as well. No one spoke for a while and eventually Alucard’s breathing slowed and softened even further. Trevor could tell he was asleep because he was goddamn heavy as hell across his legs. 

He sighed and thumped the back of his head lightly against the wall, closing his eyes as well. “Shit,” he said.

“You think this will help, speaking to him this way?” Sypha asked. She hadn’t moved her hands from Alucard’s fur.

“Can’t hurt, I suppose,” Trevor said instead of just saying he hoped that it would.

She huffed a sad little sigh and pulled her knees up to her chest. “I forgot until today,” she whispered. “Even after everything he’s been through, that he’s really only a boy.”

Trevor turned to her. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh. We spoke of it when you were off somewhere in the hold. He told me he...because he’s half vampire, he matured quite quickly. By all accounts the Speakers ever heard of his mother, she was a fairly young woman when she died. I don’t think he could be any older than twenty.”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Trevor growled.

Sypha glared because he should know she wouldn’t.

“Sorry,” he said. 

She cupped his face tenderly in her palm and smiled at him like she couldn't help herself. “We'll be fine,” she told him. “All of us.” Trevor took her hand in his instead of saying he really really hoped so.

Sometime later, when Sypha was asleep against Trevor's shoulder, and he was beginning to feel an ache in his legs that couldn't be borne any longer, Alucard stirred. Then he started shimmering, his body phasing in and out of visibility and corporeality, until there was a man in the stead of the gigantic wolf.

Still asleep, Alucard did look like a boy. His golden lashes fanned across his cheeks, which looked a little more flushed than Trevor ever remembered seeing them, perhaps the result of the fresh meat Sypha had brought him. His still pale lips were parted slightly in a relaxed pout that made Trevor, unaccountably, want to press his thumb to the lower half, just to see how soft it would feel. Instead, he internally called himself a pervert and tried to concentrate on the pins and needles sensation that was slowly traveling down his aching legs. Hilariously, Alucard as a man weighed almost as much as Alucard as a wolf. Also, perhaps not so hilariously, Trevor's hands were still buried in Alucard’s hair.

Trevor had just about decided to risk waking him to untangle his fingers, when Alucard stirred again and blinked his eyes open and up at Trevor. His whole body stiffened as he seemed to realize where he was. Trevor immediately pulled his hands away from Alucard’s person, but there was nothing to be done about their proximity. Trevor's back was against the wall and Sypha had him pinned on his right side. He was about to say something, but there was a look--blessedly, fiercely intelligent--in Alucard’s eyes that stopped him short.

With very little effort, and more grace than Trevor could ever muster, Alucard removed himself from Trevor's lap and stood. He looked down at Trevor with a blank expression that left the distinct impression he was contemplating squashing him under his bootheel. Instead, he stepped about two paces back, very slowly, turned on his heel, and walked out of the room without speaking a word.

When she woke some minutes later, Sypha was not impressed with Trevor.

“Why didn’t you go after him?” She demanded, standing over him, angrily rubbing sleep dust from her eyes. 

Trevor didn’t say because he was embarrassed and because he had absolutely no doubt Alucard was embarrassed as well. He crossed his arms and shot back, “Why did you fall asleep?”

“I was tired!” She looked down, crossing her arms to mirror him. “Are you going to go after him now?”

Trevor had thought he might, but he couldn’t until Sypha got off him and he’d woken her up in the process. Then, she’d wanted to know what happened and now they were _still talking about it_. “Why do I have to? You’re already standing.”

She rolled her eyes and turned half away from him, glancing at the ceiling as if asking Dracula’s tragic goddamn stars for aid. “If he was able to understand what you were saying to him before he transformed again, don’t you think it would be better for you to continue the conversation?”

It probably would, but opening up again that way--especially when Alucard could cooly stare at him, or worse, sneer and brush him off--was the fucking last thing Trevor wanted to do with himself. “Fuck,” he said loudly and pushed up from the floor. “Fucking fuck. All right!”

He practically threw himself down the stupid hole in the castle, grumbling the whole way, actively making as much noise as possible so Alucard could evade him, if he really wanted. 

It took Trevor several passes through the maze of the house, as it creaked and groaned around him to find where Alucard had gone. It was a smallish room. A study of some kind with books lining the walls and the remains of fine furniture strewn everywhere. The placed had been utterly trashed. There were shards of mirror on the floor. Many of the books had fallen from the shelves. Doors to a small balcony had been ripped from their hinges, perhaps thrown into the countryside. Alucard was there staring out into the sunset.

“Hey,” Trevor said lamely. He stepped out to stand at Alucard’s side. He figured, if he wasn’t wanted, Alucard would stalk off again and Trevor could at least say he tried.

Alucard closed his eyes and took a breath. He didn’t reply to Trevor’s greeting. They stood in silence for several minutes until Alucard said softly, “Make something out of it, you said.” He didn’t open his eyes.

“I did.” Trevor admitted.

Alucard sighed. “It’s difficult to make something out of bones, you know. And ashes.” He sounded so tired.

“That’s not all that’s here,” Trevor said weakly. 

Alucard finally turned and looked at Trevor with narrowed eyes. “Very difficult to see more than that when you’ve just murdered your own father.”

Trevor grunted. God, he’d been such an idiot.

Alucard continued, turning back to the hills beyond the river, where the sun had almost completely disappeared. “My memories of this place were once very happy. So happy that living among the destruction of it quickly became almost unbearable. I kept...the memories felt so strong sometimes they appeared to me as visions. Visions of the dead, of myself as a boy--as though I were dead as well. I couldn’t--”

Trevor gritted his teeth, but said nothing, waiting him out. He could listen to this, for Alucard. He had to.

“As a wolf, my thoughts remain quite my own.” Alucard paused and added softly, “at least for a time.”

Trevor’s chest tightened, twining guilt and fear together in a painful, unholy combination. 

“But I did not feel as I had about...what happened. What I’ve done and about being alone here.” Trevor couldn’t stop himself from making a pathetically pained noise. “I remembered everything, but as though it had happened to another creature. I knew that I must remain and guard this place and I was no longer… bothered. I thought, perhaps it would be all right for a while.”

“Well, it fucking wasn’t, was it?” Trevor said so suddenly he surprised even himself. He made his voice rough, though he wasn’t sure why. Alucard flinched minutely and Trevor felt even worse.

“No,” Alucard said quietly after a long moment. His eyes were still trained on the horizon. “Soon, I began to forget things. Not just the pain, but pieces of myself. And I was too isolated to be reminded. I kept forgetting and just...forgot to change back. Until now.”

“How long’s it been then?”

Alucard’s mouth turned, forming a small, though somehow beautiful little frown. “How long have you been gone?”

“Maybe three months, give or take a few days.”

“Take maybe three days less, I suppose,” he said lightly, though his hands were still tight on the railing.

Trevor lost it. White hot rage, the reason or purpose of which he was far too angry to parse, rose fast inside him, burning his eyes until they stung with tears. 

He practically leapt from the balcony and back into the wrecked room within. His hands were searching for something to break, but the furniture was already shattered to pieces. He settled for pounding his fists against the wall. A hoarse cry tore from his throat, but he strangled it quickly. What the fuck was the matter with him?

He stood there, facing the wall, hands clenched at his sides, panting with the effort to swallow another cry for perhaps a long time. He was sure Alucard hadn’t moved though. Trevor would have heard him. But he hadn’t said anything either. What was there to say, when Trevor couldn’t even hold a conversation without bellowing like an animal?

“Trevor,” he heard Sypha cry from down the corridor.

“Oh shit,” he mumbled.

She sprinted into the room, stopping short when she saw him. Her eyes darted to Alucard, who stirred, cloak rusting. Trevor heard slow steps coming his way on both sides. He looked at Sypha first.

Sypha’s voice was very low and her eyes were very wide. “What is the matter with you?”

Trevor had no idea, but he wasn’t about to say so. He huffed, mouth open, but Alucard spoke first.

“It might be a rather misplaced sense of guilt. Or indigestion. One can never tell with him,” Alucard said, very close to jovially. Trevor turned to watch him lean against the doorway, his boney shoulder--and God he looked skinnier even than before, if that was possible--pressed against the dark stone.

Sypha stared at Alucard, but only apparently long enough to show surprise at his tone and get a better look at him before she turned her baleful eyes on Trevor once again. 

Trevor didn’t even try to keep the anguish from his face and he saw her realize how truly upset he was. “He--” 

Trevor didn’t know what to say. He kept thinking of this place as a graveyard. A haunted place. A place too close to the madness that had followed Trevor through his too wild youth. “The wolf was his way of leaving. Like we said. A different way. A stupid one.”

Sypha’s mouth tightened, her lips thinning in dismay. Alucard stiffened, eyes flashing at Trevor’s words, yet he didn’t deny them. “So you, what? Pound on the floor like a toddler?”

Trevor snorted. “It was the fucking wall.”

“It was more of my father’s fucking books,” Alucard corrected.

Trevor glanced up and saw the tattered bindings. So it was. He hadn’t even seen them. He turned, his back now to the books, and wiped at his wet face, going for surreptitious, coming sadly short. Neither of them said anything about his tears.

“We shouldn’t have left you here,” Trevor said forcefully to the floor.

“It was my choice to stay behind,” Alucard replied, something hard and defensive rising in his voice. “Someone needed to keep guard of the--”

“We should have burned it all to the ground than seal you up inside this fucking coffin, Alucard.” Trevor locked eyes with him, unable to let him finish. His tone was accusatory now. It wasn’t going to help, but Trevor couldn’t stop himself. Goddamn helpless. Fucking useless.

“You forget,” Alucard spat, advancing on Trevor with anger in his eyes now. “My kind rest in coffins, Vampire Hunter.”

Trevor sneered. “Shove it up your ass. You and I both know we’re past all that now.” 

Alucard huffed, not backing down. “Are we?” He asked lowly.

“Yes,” Trevor growled, bristling. His mind racing through how this could have played out so much worse. “How long ‘til the game ran dry here and the wolf you lost your mind inside decided to leave its guard post to roam the countryside in search of fresh blood? Were you resting? Really? Erasing yourself like that?”

“Trevor,” Sypha warned as Alucard snapped, “Shut _up_ , you obnoxious prick.” He stepped into Trevor’s space and pressed him against the bookshelves at his back, forearm to Trevor’s throat. “What was all the fucking booze for, Belmont?” He hissed. “Who are _you_ to judge me?”

The hard wooden slats were painful against his road-weary bones, almost as painful as Alucard’s words, like a knife through his raging thoughts, leaving him gasping. Trevor smiled and went limp. He tilted his head back, exposing his neck. “No one. I’m an idiot,” he rasped. And Alucard blinked. “I wasn’t thinking and we left you here. I’m sorry.”

“You said that before,” Alucard said, though there was a trace of uncertainty in his words. He didn’t move his body away, but his chokehold relented.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d remember. Seemed like it bore repeating.”

“I...I knew who you were then--when you said my name--”

“Adrian.” It fell too quickly from Trevor’s mouth. He’d been thinking it so hard, it leapt from his tongue. Alucard pressed further, as though he were seeking something. His body against Trevor’s felt warmer than Trevor could remember him ever feeling before. There was heat in his skin and in his breath, which caught in his throat when Trevor helplessly said his name again.

“Why did you come back?” Alucard sounded lost.

Sypha stepped forward. She put her steady hands on Alucard, one wrapping around his arm, just below the shoulder, and the other snaking behind his hair to rest at the back of his neck. As if she’d cast a spell, his grip loosened, fingers shaking. “We missed you,” she said simply.

He turned to face her and let himself fall into her embrace. Trevor slumped even further, but Alucard hadn’t stepped fully away and their proximity meant that he could lean on them both for a moment--like they were all a little pyramid. 

It was good because while he wasn’t injured, Trevor didn’t feel prepared to stand on his own. His heart was racing. Something important had just happened. Alucard’s hands were on Sypha’s waist and something in Trevor’s chest unwound, bloomed. It was nice. He wanted more of that feeling.

Alucard and Sypha had pressed their foreheads together, noses brushing, but after a moment Alucard lifted his head. Turning to Trevor, he opened his mouth. “I’m--”

He got no further because Trevor leaned forward, murmuring, “Hush,” and pressing his lips to Alucard’s. Sypha made a surprised, pleased noise and Alucard melted into them both. Trevor kissed him for a long moment, but then pulled away. Sypha pressed forward then and kissed the corner of Alucard’s open mouth. His expression was surprised, but pleasantly so and turning ever more contented.

Watching the two people he loved best in the world loving each other in rapt attention, Trevor babbled absently, “I was angry because I should have...I didn’t know, but I know--I know what it is to want to disappear. To run away from it. Please, please don’t do that again.”

Alucard shook his head and kissed Trevor again. Sypha’s hand crept into Trevor’s hair, nails lightly scraping his scalp. He shivered as Alucard murmured to his lips, “Don’t leave me alone again.”

“Never,” Sypha said, tears in her eyes.

Trevor pulled back and gave him his most dazzling smile. “Well, we’re down a horse thanks to you, so actually, we’re quite stranded. Not going anywhere for a while, darling.”

“Oh,” Alucard breathed. He blushed at the pet name, but quickly pressed even closer, wrapping his arms around them both and letting his head fall to rest at the crook of Trevor’s neck. “All right, then.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy this treat, lovely pinch-hitter. I started this fic a while ago for myself, but seeing your request pushed me to finish, as our post-S2 needs seem to have closely aligned. Happy Yuletide! And may we see the premiere of S3 in the coming year.


End file.
